Digital media includes multimedia, such as video and audio content, which is received by and presented to an end-user on a user device, such as a computer, smartphone, etc. The digital media may be presented from a content provider over a network, such as the Internet, and may be referred to as “on-line media content.” Much on-line media content is offered to users free of charge and subsidized through on-line advertising. On-line advertising includes in-stream advertising, such as video advertisements that appear before, during and/or after on-line media content (e.g., Internet videos). These video advertisements, which are similar to television commercials, may appear, for example, before the Internet video is played and may typically last 15 to 30 seconds.
The effectiveness of a particular advertisement is one metric used to determine the cost or value of the advertisement. The effectiveness typically measures how much of an effect the advertisement has on the viewer (i.e., whether it influences their feelings toward the advertised product). The effectiveness of television commercials and on-line video advertisements is conventionally measured using brand awareness surveys. The advertiser typically designs a questionnaire related to the advertisement and manually administers the survey to selected viewers. The selected viewers then manually answer the questionnaire and return the results to the advertiser or survey administrator. This manual process can be time-consuming, expensive and the results may not be a reliable indicator of the advertisement's true effectiveness.